Lea die Birke
Lea die Birke [she/her] is currently a highschool student that attends at non-legacy public highschool near BookEnd. She is the stepsister of Icarus Juniper and the cousin of Mark Juniper, and recently became part of the Juniper family when her mother Lindsay married Icarus' father Macintosh. Although the administration intended her to replace Mark as the next Marlinchen in the Juniper Tree, Mark ended up retaining his role. You will commonly see her around BookEnd, or visiting her girlfriend Tenley Rosewood at Ever After High. Character Personality Lea, on the outside, appears as a sweetie who cares about the comfort of others and who strives to make people happy. She's admirable in how affectionate and caring she can be, and would definitely be considered hospitable. While this is not false, such hospitality is mostly done to "keep up appearances" and is something that she does because it is expected of her. In private, Lea is idealistic and romantic. She's obsessed with the idea of sentimentalisme and wants to live a life driven by her emotions. Lea is prone to overromanticising things and often lives in her classic novels, operas and musicals (often ones where the main characters die). She can be unaware of the true gravity of love or obsession in the real world, and would rather live in her innocent escapism in novels and art. Her investment in the arts leads her into wanting to be a more cultured and "sophisticated" person, so she often strives to recite monologues from famous plays off the bat, she's working on painting in watercolour and knows surface level knowledge of Impressionism and the Pre-Raphaelites to impress people in conversation. In other words, she's pretty pretentious. That said, don't write her off as an asshole. One of the reason Lea is closed off from the real world and only interacts with others with superficial kindness is because fiction is the only place in which she has a decent escape and feels that life is worth living. She's a non-legacy, and her only chance of being a legacy is a story she wouldn't want to live. Her family life is stale, and she has few close friends at school. Appearance Lea is tall and awkward, with squishy cheeks. She has brown hair and does her best to dress cute and unassumingly. Hobbies and Interests Obviously, literature and the arts is a huge interest of Lea. She is often seen with a book. Even if she isn't reading it, she's carrying it for appearances. Outside of that, she does volunteering around the BookEnd area. She is unsure what she wants to pursue in her future. Fairytale Trope: The Rival Stepsister In a lot of Germanic fairytales, the protagonist often has a stepsister, who serves as a rival, whether it be romantic, whether it be for their parents' attention, or whether it be for inheritance. In the case of The Juniper Tree, Marlinchen plays the role of the stepsister, and it's interesting to note that there's nothing antagonistic about her character. How does Lea come into it? Before Branches, Birches and Junipers, Lea was a simple non-legacy teenager with nothing on her mind except pretty girl and school grades. Her life plan was simple: do well in school, get a job, build a stable livelihood. Nothing much changed in that plan when her mother, Lindsay die Birke, remarried to Macintosh Juniper, Icarus Juniper's father. Lea realised that her mother would be sacrificed in order to fulfill some destiny, but this was the fairytale world, this was the way things happened, and she wasn't close to her mother, despite her being her only parent, so she never questioned it. While Lea did read the actual story of the Juniper Tree as she was to be part of the family, she didn't realise that her mother marrying the prevoius brother meant that she was perfectly liable to become the next Marlinchen, taking the destiny from her new cousin. This meant that she had no strong opinions on what could have been her potential role until the Junipers confront her about it. She was furious at the confrontation, because she felt that the boys could have involved her in their conversations and inform her earlier that she was upsetting them by her existence. And because destiny was a family matter, she realised that the two didn't truly regard her as part of their family. Because of this negative experience, Lea doesn't have the best association with the Juniper Tree and the Marlinchen destiny. She's completely put off by the idea and wants nothing to do with the story. Parallels The major parallel is that Lea is supposed to essentially reflect the narrative tension between the brother and the stepmother in the Juniper Tree. Lea is functionally the thing that gets in the way of someone's (Mark's) inheritance (the destiny of Marlinchen). Relationships Family Parents Lea's biological father and her mother divorced a while ago. She is relatively chill about this. Her mother got remarried to Icarus' dad, whose situation was much more well-off than Lea's previous one. Moving from an average middle-class situation to a more comfortable upper-middle class situation was a bit of a change, but not a huge one for Lea to manage. Her new stepbrother is Icarus Juniper, and her cousin is Mark Juniper. The relationship between Lea and the two was very tense over the course of Branches due to destiny reasons, but post-Branches, a lot has healed and she is slowly being accepted into part of the family. Friends Lea does not have many friends. While she has a handful of people she knows and hangs out with her at BookEnd public school, she is not particularly close to any. It makes her feel lonely sometimes. Romance Tenley Rosewood Lea and Tenley knew each other from the wedding between Lea's mother and Icarus' father, but to Lea, Tenley was only "the Juniper's good friend". They finally interacted properly when they encountered each other at a BookEnd park, where Tenley rescued Lea from a bunch of angry ducks. Ever since then, Lea held an admiration for the next Bird in the Rose-Tree, believing their interaction to be super romantic and that Tenley was super heroic. Eventually, the two end up dating. Trivia *Lea is a pun on "leaf", which are on trees, while "die Birke" means "the birch", which is a tree pun (say it aloud). Quotes Gallery Lea_portrait.png|first ever art of her Tumblr nreipfR3wH1uagzxmo4 r1 1280.png|Tenlea drawn by lee Tenlea for mogie.png|Tenlea, this time by me because I'm self-indulgent Gaaaaaay.png|redraw done by lee one year later Thatgayshit eye emoji.png|version of the redraw without the lighting Gaytrees.png|that sweet tenlea by lee Category:Characters Category:Females Category:Zena's Secondary Characters Category:Lesbian Category:German